Friday, July 19, 2013

Today's Republican Party has been Taken Over by the Hard Right, Libertarians, John Birchers, and Tea Party

First came Abraham Lincoln who freed the slaves, then Teddy Roosevelt in the early part of the 20th century who some now call the first 'Progressive' who believed in saving the environment, and then Dwight Eisenhower (Ike) who decided all children had a right to the same education and integrated schools in American starting in Arkansas. Today those 'Progressives' could not be elected as Republicans.

The article from Politicususa, Conservatives are Terrified by America's Rising Surge of Liberalism, by Sarah Jones made me chuckle. The very thought that a liberal or progressive would have a worthwhile agenda doesn't compute in their brains. They have swallowed the koolaid that only 'conservatives' know all the answers and that Obama and the Democrats are ALWAYS wrong.

Know all about the pushing of the Conservative agenda or thought I did because I was a conservative before the Koch Bros Tea Party took over the GOP and the Party went hard right. Never was a social conservative even years ago it put me in the moderate column. Huge supporter of National Security and have discovered so are a lot of Progressives starting with President Obama.

There is no better friend to our veterans, military, and their families then the Obama's. The First Lady, Michelle Obama, has made so many visits to our military installations that the MSM ignores. The families love her because she talks one on one and really cares - nothing phony about her. Her outreach into the military community has earned her accolades from people I know who never thought she would do such a tremendous job working with the families. When you hear spouses who testified before Congress talk, they you about how they were welcomed to the White House by The First Lady before going to Congress. She put them at ease.

Our environment has a true friend in the White House today with the push toward renewable energy. Have had some ask if he is the second Teddy Roosevelt who is now deemed the first Progressive by the hard right -- trust me that is not a compliment. Now conservative are afraid the American people are buying into saving the environment and wants to call us all liberals. That is one badge I would proudly wear as a conservationist. I would rather err on the side of the environment then have my head buried in the sand.

Bartlett who was never one of my favorites has it all wrong because President Obama is a strong leader who actually doesn't care who gets the credit as long as it passes and it works. He will listen to ideas from a lot of different people which IMHO makes the best leader possible. He looks for issues that benefit all Americans just not a political party which makes some liberals angry as we see from time to time with Chris Matthews, MSNBC, and his meltdowns when Obama doesn't do what he thinks he should.

Bartlett has made me realize that I stopped being a conservative a long time before I would admit it to myself. Now I find myself supporting a progressive agenda after living in a city that believes in renewable energy, recycling, and fix infrastruture which are all three missing in the conservative movement of the day. Norman welcomes people from around the world to our town and want them to feel welcome while at The University of Oklahoma. When we first moved here, we lived across the street from a Petroleum professor from Venzuela. Around the corner was a professor from South Africa. We have over 100 foreign students every year on campus so we are a multi-national city.

Mayor Cindy Rosenthal who was just elected to her third term as Mayor is overseeing the growth of Norman in a responsible manner. Bartlett wouldn't do well with our Mayor and the fact we are a 'tree city' supporting renewable energy, smart grid with smart meters, wind power, and CNG to run our fleet of city vehicles along with a huge upgrade to our infrastructure thanks to the stimulus dollars and bonds passed by city residents. Guess you could call us a progressive city in Bartlett's world. Environmental friendly for Norman residents is very high on the list of the Mayor, City Manager, and City Council. Some conservatives call us 'liberal' in Norman but if this is what being 'liberal' is all about, count me in!

Strong liberalism is on the rise, Bruce Bartlett announces rather sadly in the Fiscal Times, as you would expect for a supply-side economics expert who was a policy adviser to Reagan. Liberalism is on the rise, it’s going to take over just like conservatism did, because people like liberal ideas like a minimum wage and taxing the rich, he tells us.

But before Bartlett gets to the super sad part about how conservatives have no ideas and liberalism might just get somewhere if only they had a strong leader, Bartlett has to drag liberalism-in-action through the mud, chock full of the usual FDR resentment (“free stuff” isn’t written anywhere, but you can hear the whispers). He opines, “One can argue about how liberal Obama is, but it is obvious that he has not been a transformational president. It is clear that the energy remains on the Republican side with almost all policy issues debated within a conservative framework.”

This is how Republicans comfort themselves, but it’s actually not accurate. The framework of a policy argument is not set by the President; it’s a cultural matter, as all policy debate really is. Yes, Democrats and liberals need to do a better job of reframing issues if they want to win hearts and minds. The media is stuck in the stone age when Republican frames were all the rage.

But also, Obama has been very liberal via an incremental approach to long term paradigm shifting. Only someone who hasn’t actually read what was in the stimulus thinks Obama isn’t liberal, and isn’t enacting a very liberal agenda. Shhhh, don’t tell anyone. Republicans would really freak out if they knew.

As ambitious and far-reaching as FDR’s New Deal, the Recovery Act is a down payment on the nation’s economic and environmental future, the purest distillation of change in the Obama era.

The stimulus has launched a transition to a clean-energy economy, doubled our renewable power, and financed unprecedented investments in energy efficiency, a smarter grid, electric cars, advanced biofuels, and green manufacturing. It is computerizing America’s pen-and-paper medical system. Its Race to the Top is the boldest education reform in U.S. history. It has put in place the biggest middle-class tax cuts in a generation, the largest research investments ever, and the most extensive infrastructure investments since Eisenhower’s interstate highway system. It includes the largest expansion of antipoverty programs since the Great Society, lifting millions of Americans above the poverty line, reducing homelessness, and modernizing unemployment insurance. Like the first New Deal, Obama’s stimulus has created legacies that last: the world’s largest wind and solar projects, a new battery industry, a fledgling high-speed rail network, and the world’s highest-speed Internet network.

But it’s a comfort to Republicans to pretend that Obama hasn’t fundamentally changed America, that he’s been inept.

Ironically, Obama has been a better fiscal leader than any Republican of late. He’s shown restraint, responsibility, integrity, and character. He paid for his healthcare reform program – a program based on a liberal idea but implemented using competition as its foundation. Is Obama moderate? No, but he’s wise and has a solid temperament. He is not an extremist, a fact which does not preclude being a strong liberal unless you only see liberals as they were stereotyped in the 1960s. Obama picks up on good ideas and he doesn’t care where they come from. This causes many to view him inaccurately based on that one idea.

We are running monthly surpluses today thanks to President Obama and Democrats in Congress who had the foresight to see what needed to be done to help the Country move forward. Think how far we would be if the obstructionist Republican conservatives in Congress had come on board to work with President Obama instead of fighting him every step of the way with obstruction.

When you have a party that meets the night of the inauguration in 2009 to plot strategy to block anything Obama attempted to do to help the Country, you have a party devoid of ideas and ethics. Today's Republican Party is shallow with little empathy for those less fortunate. Instead of reaching out to help, they want to throw the poor and less fortunate overboard by cutting foodstamps, healthcare, and minimum wage for starters.

Conservatives have allowed themselves to be run by the Libertarian/John Birch Koch Bros and other wealthy donors for years. These people don't have the best interest of Americans at heart but their bottom line as they want to accumulate even more money. Being one of the richest people in the world is not good enough as they want to run the Country with their agenda where the wealthy gets richer thanks to no regulations or minimum wage while the middle class and poor get poorer.

Very happy with my choice to become a Progressive supporting public education, programs that help those less fortunately, our veterans and military, women's rights, civil rights for all, the environment, immigration reform, affordable health care, and the list goes on as we move forward not backward like conservatives want to do today.

First came Abraham Lincoln who freed the slaves, then Teddy Roosevelt in the early part of the 20th century who some now call the first 'Progressive' who believed in saving the environment, and then Dwight Eisenhower (Ike) who decided all children had a right to the same education and integrated schools in American starting in Arkansas. The Republican Party has a rich heritage that has gone the way of the dinosaur thanks to the hard right shift brought to the GOP by the Libertarian, John Birch Koch Bros who have taken over the Republican Party. Leadership of the GOP failed to see what would happen when giving social conservatives and Koch Bros Tea Party a seat at the table as they were more concerned about raking in the dollars for the GOP any way they could.

Shift to the hard right is destroying the Republican Party of Lincoln, Teddy, and Ike. More and more Republicans are shifting their allegiance away from the Republican Party to the Progressives like President Obama who have the ideas on how to make things better. They are tired of the 'stuck on stupid' mode of the 50's GOP.